


Dying is Easy, Living is Harder

by Pastelbluesky



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: And violence, Angst, Chapter 4: Saint Denis (Red Dead Redemption 2), Character Death, Descriptions of gore, Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, Jewish Hosea, M/M, No seriously there's a lot of descriptions of gore and blood so be warned now, Protective Hosea Matthews
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:41:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25883788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastelbluesky/pseuds/Pastelbluesky
Summary: Hosea had been preparing for months to die, but unfortunately, it seems like life after death is real, and now he's forced to wander the world with his other dead friends as he sees the gang and the people he cared for so deeply slowly crumble.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith, Hosea Matthews/Dutch van der Linde, Probably some more relationships as the story goes on but idk
Comments: 14
Kudos: 51





	Dying is Easy, Living is Harder

_Who would've thought that dying would hurt?_ Hosea had thought at some point in his life. He had been shot at countless times, but the thought of death had never really pressed him until he started developing that repulsive cough.

He had always imagined he would die slowly, coughing his way to an early grave. He believed that one day he'd use his skills that he had acquired over time to guide others to a better future so that one day he'd pass with his loved ones around him, slowly drifting off into another realm to see others who had moved on before him.

Instead, what he got for his troubles was a hole in the chest, courtesy of Agent Milton. The pain was just as brutal as he had expected, shockwaves of agony rippling through his torso as blood quickly stained his shirt. As the bullet finished it's path somewhere in his abdomen, the air felt like it was being sucked out of Hosea's lungs, and all feeling from his legs, forcing him to drop to the dirty street. 

He could faintly hear the cries of his friends from inside the bank, the strain in Dutch's voice ever more apparent. He could hear Arthur's voice crack from fear as clear as a rooster's crow in the early morning. There were other voices too, but they were growing so faint now, Hosea could barely hear them.

The dirt that made up the street felt warm, almost inviting. Hosea couldn't wait to be buried in it. He could faintly hear screams and gunshots and glass breaking, but it was getting so hard to stay awake. The pain was excruciating as it pierced throughout his body but he could barely focus on it since he felt so strangely tired, his eyelids feeling heavier than a bucket full of metal. Hosea felt a gentle thud on his leg. Someone must've kicked him as they were stepping over his body, but he could barely feel it. The dirt felt colder now, like the cool side of a pillow on a hot night. It was a good feeling. Hosea had always cherished those cool, inviting feelings when he was in bed with Dutch, which now felt like so long ago. 

_Oh, Dutch,_ Hosea thought, cradling the memories in his mind, I'm _sorry my darling, I should've known this would end badly. Don't take this out on Arthur and John and everyone else, they don't deserve it._

The ground felt even colder now, like the snow from when they were hiding in Colter. Back then, Hosea hadn't been sure if he and the gang would've even been able to make it out of the snowy Grizzlies without the Pinkertons catching up with them. They had already lost so much, and now it seems they were going to lose one more. Hosea hoped he would be the last. He hoped that with his death maybe, just maybe, Dutch would turn things around, find some money, and let everyone go to lead their individual lives. Hosea wished he was right, even if he knew deep down that he was wrong. 

The ground was too cold now, like he was laying on a bed of ice. Hosea wanted to get up so he wouldn't be cold anymore, but he knew he couldn't; he was dying, wasn't he? Squeezing his eyes shut, he waited for death to come, for him to stop thinking and join Bessie and his mother in the eternal void.

But it never came. Hosea continued to lie there on the ground, feeling the cold dirt against his skin. He never thought dying would take this long, and yet here he was. He heard someone yell something, something about men escaping onto the docks, but this was louder than it had been moments ago when the dirt hadn't been so cold, loud like it had been before he got shot. Had he died already? The pain in his chest was still there, if less so than before. As the moment passed, the pain became less and less, until finally all Hosea could feel of it was the gaping hole where the bullet entered his body.

Slowly but surely, Hosea rolled over onto his back, opening his eyes at a glacial pace to let in the bright sunlight. He breathed the soupy city air, and for the first time in a long time, it didn't result in a fit of coughing. Hosea slowly looked around from where he was on the ground. There were dead lawmen and Pinkertons all around him. He could see some morbidly curious civilians looking at the carnage from a distance. Hosea didn't blame them, he couldn't imagine they've had a show like this for a while. Hadn't he joined those lawmen and Pinkertons in death? Hadn't his soul passed on like the rest of theirs had?

By the time the sun had started to go down, Hosea had worked up the courage to sit up. Surprisingly, there was no pain in his chest when he positioned himself upright, which he supposed was a good thing. He could see the carnage in greater detail now. The windows and the main door of the bank were all shot to hell. There was blood pooling in big puddles along the street from all the dead. Hosea couldn't see Dutch or Arthur or anyone else that he knew. He hoped they made it out. Well, he hoped they at least escaped; making it out was a whole different matter.

As slowly as he had sat up, Hosea pulled himself to his feet, using a nearby box to make sure he didn't crumble all over the sidewalk. Looking back where he had lain, he almost threw up over what he saw. His body was lying there, right in front of him, exactly in the spot where he had just been. His blood was pouring out of his body, forming red grid lines in between the cobblestones, his once rosy cheeks now devoid of color. It was a really strange sensation, seeing your own dead body, with its glass-like eyes and still form. Hosea couldn't get over how just… dead he looked, if that made any sense. He never expected it to happen like this, but this is what it had come to.

"Mr. Matthews! H-Hosea, o-over here!" a scared but familiar sounding voice called from somewhere to Hosea's right.

Hosea turned and there was Lenny, stumbling towards him and scared out of his wits, his own gray suit stained with dark crimson blood. 

"Oh Lenny, not you too," Hosea croaked, taking the terrified teenager in his arms, "What happened? Did the lawmen get you?"

Lenny drew back from Hosea's embrace and began fiddling with the orange bandana around his neck. "We… well we got out from the bank, Arthur blew a h-hole in the wall, and then we got up onto the roof and I w-went over first to find an escape route and then some guys came out f-from a door and then… then…"

"Then you died."

Lenny simply nodded. He didn't want to accept it anymore than Hosea did, but they knew this wasn't something that they could just undo.

Hosea looked at his hands, still stained with blood. They looked strangely translucent, although that may be a hallucination from the shock and loss of blood. He looked closer at Lenny's trembling body and saw that the light was shining through his dark sienna skin instead of bouncing off it; like jello almost, but just a little more opaque.

"Well, Lenny," Hosea began, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder, "As much as it pains me to say this, if I have to walk this afterlife as some ghost, I'm glad you're here with me."

Lenny's mouth curled into a sad smile as he wiped a tear away from the corner of his eye. "Me too, Hosea. I couldn't imagine if I had to do this with someone like Micah or Bill."

Hosea smiled and glanced down at himself on the street, his gaunt cheeks looking even more sunken than usual. "Where's your body, Lenny?"

"Back up there," the younger man answered, pointing to one of the nearby buildings, "What… what do you think they're gonna do with them? Our bodies, I mean."

Hosea shrugged. He assumed the lawmen would come back at some point to bury their fallen, and he figured their bodies would get thrown into the pyre as well.

The two of them sat there for a while, contemplating what to do. Even though they were both dead, Hosea still felt responsible for Lenny. The guilt as he saw the flower of blood on the young man's shirt grew with every passing moment. Hosea was old enough that if he died there wouldn't be much fuss, but Lenny was only nineteen. He deserved so much better than… this…

"Hey Hosea?"

"Yeah?"

"Did Dutch and everyone else get away? Are they, y' know… safe?"

Hosea sighed. "No idea, but I hope so. I don't think I can stand to see another one of us die prematurely."

"D'you… you think we should go back to camp? Y'know… just to be around other people, make sure they're safe and all that?"

Hosea brushed his hair back and looked around. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. But we left our horses back at camp, so I figure we'll have to steal one."

"Yeah, I ain't got no plans on walking all the way back to Shady Belle through the bayou." Lenny chuckled darkly. 

The two of them wandered around the streets of Saint Denis until they spotted a dark gray horse all by itself, it's owner seemingly nowhere to be found. Lenny, who even dead, was still the more agile of the two, went to lead it away into the alley they were hiding in. Thankfully there weren't many civilians around due to the shootout at the bank, but that didn't matter because Lenny's hands passed right through the horse.

"Shit," Lenny barked, "Hosea, I think we gotta problem. Turns out dead people can't ride horses."

"What a world we live in. I guess we'll have to walk the way back." Hosea sighed, stretching his back in preparation for the long journey ahead as Lenny groaned loudly.

The two men were about to head out, but out of the corner of his eye, Hosea spotted someone staring at them. There was a little girl on the corner of the sidewalk, no older than five, peering at them with wide doe-like eyes. Her dark skin was marred with burns and other scars that told the story of how she died. Hosea figured she must've perished in a fire and was left to wander the world without her parents. Behind her was a boy who looked a few years older than her. He wasn't burned like her, but his skin was covered in red splotches and his eyes looked sunken enough that Hosea knew he must've died from smallpox or some other deadly disease. He wondered why they were still around. If everyone had a ghost form like this, then why did some people pass on while others stayed like this, wandering the world in the form of how they died? 

_And even still,_ Hosea thought, _why would these children not pass on? Do they have some unfinished business? Are they trying to figure out how they died and who killed them?_

As the two men continued their walk through Saint Denis, Hosea was reminded of a story his mother used to tell him when he was younger. Neither of his parents had been especially religious, especially with his father's constant debauchery, but his mother had kept her Jewish faith until she died, and had transferred many of those stories and tendencies to her son. She once had told him about the story of the Dybbuk, a malevolent spirit of a dead person who would cling to a living person, speaking through their mouth and controlling their actions until the Dybbuk's own goals had been reached. Hosea as a child had been terrified by that story, he had been so self-conscious about his actions that sometimes he would second guess what he did because he wasn't sure if a Dybbuk was controlling him. He had thankfully grown out of that fear as he got older, but the idea of living on after death due to unfinished business had always fascinated him as a concept. Hosea figured that he had now become his own fascination. 

After about half an hour of wandering, Lenny and Hosea found themselves on the edge of Saint Denis. They had passed by plenty of living people going about their normal lives, but from the corner of his eyes Hosea spotted torn and tattered souls looking out at them and everyone else from the boarded up windows and dark alleyways. It became very apparent very quickly that the living couldn't see either of them, which Hosea figured made sense, there probably would've been more commotion if two men with bullet holes in their chests and blood on their shirts were spotted walking down the street.

Thankfully Hosea had grown up hunting and being able to navigate his own way, or else he and Lenny would've found themselves deep in the swamps with no way to get back. Thankfully, Bayou Nwa wasn't the mountains so there were visible dirt roads for them to follow. As they continued down the path, they came across a range, which in the bayou was a rather strange sight. Lenny pointed out that there was a big sign with the number four painted on it with a single horse grazing in the middle of the field. Hosea and Lenny were about to disregard the sight, but as they walked along the fence, Hosea could see that the horse's mane looked like it was on fire. It's coat was a rather beautiful shade of very light pastel green and it's large white eyes made Hosea feel like they were staring into his soul, quite literally.

"Hey Hosea, are, uh, are horses supposed to be green?" Lenny asked, leaning against the fence to get a better look.

"No, I suppose they usually aren't."

"Huh," Lenny continued, "I mean, I've seen a blue horse before but uh… you don't think that horse is dead too? Like us?"

Almost right on cue, the fiery green horse trotted up to the pair of men and neighed loudly. As the horse got closer, Hosea saw that the animal was also in the land of the dead alongside them. It's eyes were sunken and it's ribs were poking through the skin. There were deep scratches and bite marks all across it's body, seemingly from an attack from a wolf or alligator. It was almost hauntingly beautiful but, at the same time, incredibly gruesome.

Lenny tentatively reached out to stroke the horse's muzzle, the beast neighing happily from the affection. The two men were more surprised they were able to touch it in the first place.

"Oh, you poor thing," Hosea consoled in the soft voice he reserved for scared children, "You must've been wandering with no one to pet or love you for a long time, hm?"

The horse neighed again and trotted through a hole in the range's fence and nuzzled it's head against Hosea's.

"Well, on the bright side, at least we won't have to walk the whole way back." Lenny chuckled before hesitantly climbing onto the stallion's back with only a little resistance from the horse.

"Well," grinned Hosea, "If we're going to have a ghost horse, I think we should give him a name, don't you?"

"Sure, you got any ideas?"

"Hm… How about Harry?"

"Harry? Why Harry?"

Hosea scratched his chin. "Not sure. Something about this range made me think of it."

"Oh well, it's as good a name as any." Lenny shrugged, helping his elderly friend onto Harry's back.

Thankfully with a horse now, the ride back to Shady Belle took no time at all. Hosea spotted a few ghostly figures wandering around the swamps, but he did his best to pay them no mind. It was hard enough to forget that he was dead with the bloody hole in his chest. He hoped as his wandering continued, his flesh wouldn't rot away like a corpse that was six feet under. If he was going to do this for the rest of eternity, he might as well keep his, as Dutch sometimes joked, "elderly good looks".

Night had fully enveloped Bayou Nwa by the time Shady Belle came into view. Even in the dead of night, there was hurried movement on the grounds, Hosea and Lenny could see it all the way from the end of the path. As they got closer, Hosea frantically looked around for Dutch or Arthur or anyone that had been at the bank robbery with them. To his dismay, he couldn't spot any of them, with the exception of Charles, who was carrying a very heavy-looking sack of grain. 

_Oh God,_ Hosea thought as they pulled Harry up to the other horses and dismounted, _Charles is back, but where the hell is everyone else?_

Everyone in the camp seemed to be in a hurry to pack up; Mrs. Grimshaw was barking orders at just about everyone who could hear her, and he even spotted Mrs. Adler pulling Uncle off his ass to work for once. Hosea knew that the robbery had gone horribly wrong, but had their location been found out? Were the Pinkertons about to burst out of the grass at any moment?

Hosea was so wrapped up in his neurotic worries that he didn't see two people rushing up to them.

"Ay, 'Osea, it's good to see ya bud, I see you and Lenny got killed as well, eh?!" Came a squeaky but familiar Irish voice.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there, thanks for reading! I finally pulled myself out of a nearly 9-month writer's block to complete this, so I hope you enjoyed it!!
> 
> I'm not sure how long this fic will end up being, but comments and suggestions are very much appreciated!


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